


The State of Broken Things

by writerdragonfly



Series: Fics I Am Currently Working On (March 2021) [16]
Category: Dead by Daylight (Video Game), IT (Movies - Muschietti), Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: (Applies to the narrative; Major in DBD Character Death), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Anxiety and Related Mental Health Issues, Canon-Typical Dimension & Time Travel, Dimension Travel, Escape, F/F, F/M, Fix-It, M/M, Magic, Minor Character Death, Multi, Other, Resurrection, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-13
Updated: 2021-03-13
Packaged: 2021-03-20 22:06:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30011631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writerdragonfly/pseuds/writerdragonfly
Summary: At the moment of Pennywise’s defeat, the Entity steals away two souls. Intent on torturing the two of them for eternity for their crimes against the Entity’s lost spawn, it begins the first trial without hesitation. Unfortunately for the Entity, Richie Tozier knows how to win—and with Eddie’s surprise resurrection, he has a reason to fight for it.Unfortunately for Richie, escape is only the beginning.
Relationships: David King/Quentin Smith, Dwight Fairfield/Jake Park, Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier, Nea Karlsson/Feng Min, Potential Steve Harrington/David King/Quentin Smith
Series: Fics I Am Currently Working On (March 2021) [16]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2208750
Comments: 1
Kudos: 4





	The State of Broken Things

**Author's Note:**

> Due to the nature of Dead by Daylight and the character death that occurs within the fic, at least three pairings that occur in the early story consisting of major story characters will be split up. These relationships are not tagged. None of the specifically tagged characters in either the character tags or relationship tags will permanently die during the course of the story. 
> 
> The relationships tagged are endgame and contain a mix of pending, developing, and established relationships. Other relationships may appear but won't be tagged as they are background relationships only.
> 
> If you would like a full list of background or split pairings, please feel free to leave a comment.
> 
> As with most of my fics, updates may be slow.

**It’s** been a long time since they’ve seen someone new. He’s never really been sure of how long a day is, even outside... this place. In here, it’s harder to even keep a good grip on how long it’s been since they last slept. 

The thing is, they don’t really. Sleep. Or eat. 

They can, and sometimes they do just to feel like things are okay. Normal. 

But it isn’t, they’re not. 

  
  


Whenever they go into a trial, it’s like they’re rebuilt into exactly what they were the moment they ended up here. Whatever skills they learn stay with them, all the way down to muscle memory. But cuts and scrapes and wounds and guts—however much they were hurt or mutilated at the end of the match; however tired they were for not sleeping or hungry they were for starving themselves—it all reverts back to the baseline. At the beginning of the trial, and the end. Even if they die. 

And they do. Die, that is. 

They die in countless and terrible ways, painful and heartbreaking and endless. 

Sometimes the killers don’t hurt them at all. Somehow, those are the hardest trials to deal with. 

It’s always worse the trial after that too, especially if it’s the same killer. 

Steve doesn’t know how many days and nights, weeks and months, years... more? It’s been since he and Nancy first arrived here. Nancy does. Nancy was always better at that kind of thing, Steve was always better at... well, nothing really. 

He’s okay with that though, really. 

  
  


He doesn’t think time means the same thing here it does outside either. Or perhaps, whatever the Entity is has nothing stopping it from plucking them from time itself. 

  
  


He doesn’t know why the Entity hasn’t brought anyone new since Zarina, and the Deathslinger. 

But... he doesn’t need to keep track of what passes for days and nights to know it’s been too long. 

  
  


**-x-**

  
  
  


> _The claw she’s just started struggling with suddenly pauses to stop mid-swing to her chest, and hovers there. She pushes against it with her bloody hands, the slickness against the shell barely noticeable when the claw moves with ease._
> 
> _A few feet away, Jake freezes where he’s crouched behind the rocks along the slope of the hill. Kate would scream at him to hurry the fuck up, but she’s afraid the Entity will notice if she does. She stays quiet, staring at Jake Park like looking away will be the end of everything. Maybe it would be._
> 
> _Suddenly, there’s a terrible screech—like a hissing cockroach and lightning and a death rattle all at once._
> 
> _The claw returns, bright and vibrant and quick._
> 
> _It doesn’t matter that Jake is pulling her off the hook. It hits her hard, a solid smack right into her chest that just slides right in._
> 
> _She knows she’s dead before it even finishes the movement._
> 
> _She also knows, somehow, it’s not the same kind of death._
> 
> _“Steve—“ she whimpers and knows nothing more_

**-x-**

  
  


It hadn’t been a terrible trial, all things considered. Kate was on her second hook, Adam barely on his first. Adam had been trying out the aura reading projection skill Claudette had taught them, and Nea could sense Jake a few feet from Kate. The Doctor hadn’t been doing his best lately, showing up with a slightly different skill set that he didn’t seem to quite understand yet. Nea didn’t get it, but the Entity did that sometimes, changed the rules of how their skills and items worked. Well, she assumed it was the Entity anyway. Who cared?

Nea was stuck in the damned locker until The Doctor got far enough away, but he seemed stupidly content to just stare at Adam’s face from a foot away. She would jump out, but she hadn’t been able to figure out quite how Jane’s locker skills worked and the Doctor was blocking the exit of the basement in his stare off anyway. 

She was fucked until Jake pulled Kate off, probably. 

And then it was like all the air left the fucking room. It went dead quiet and still. It was reckless, but Nea eased open the locker anyway. Kate wasn’t struggling, she was still. But, she wasn’t dead yet. Jake stopped crouching. 

The doctor had stopped his insane fucking giggle and just tilted his head. He made no attempt at electrocuting her or smacking her with the stick in his hand. Adam caught her gaze and prepared to jump the hook. 

Before he could roll his shoulders all the way to prepare, there was a terrible, unmentionable sound that echoed through the basement. The Doctor covered his ears, his stick dropping from his hand. It rolled up to Nea’s toes. 

The Doctor didn’t see the claw coming from behind him. It was the color of the crackly fire red of the trial end, like when the Entity got too impatient for them to attempt escape and took them anyway. Except, it was fast and merciless and deadly. It took the Doctor by utter surprise, and Nea could hear his natural voice coming through the strange clownish way his laughter sounded— _except he was screaming_. He was _screaming_ , and then the claw pierced right through to Adam too, who’d not even begun to reach the second stage. Adam’s face would haunt her for a long time, the same way the Doctor’s scream would. 

When it was over and the Entity took them away, Nea picked up Adam’s dropped bracelet and the Doctor’s stick and tried not to vomit on her way up the stairs. 

She was running before she even had time to think about it, headed for the hill half the realm away. 

Jake’s face was covered in blood and viscera and Nea really was puking then. 

Thirty seconds, maybe forty-five. 

It felt like hours. 

  
  
**-x-**  
  


They finished the last generator and popped the gate open. They were gone before the ground even rumbled. 

  
  
**-x-**

Kate and Adam never showed up again. 

There was still blood on Jake’s face.

  
  


**-x-**

  
  


The campfire is usually a good sight to see. Somehow, Jake wants to cry instead. He’s never been a crier. 

He’s got a stoic face. An ex called it resting bitchface once. Whatever. It doesn’t mean Jake doesn’t feel—he _does_. He always has. He just doesn’t see much point in showing it. He’s not expressive. 

Dwight looks up from where he sits, chewing on his fingernails like he does when he’s anxious and waiting. Dwight looks up and sees the blood on his face and he gets that concerned look on his face and Jake just _falls apart._

He’s sobbing, gross dirty crying against his still bloody hands and it’s unsanitary as fuck and he doesn’t fucking cry or get emotional in front of people but Kate Denson was murdered in front of him as she tried to apologize to her _boyfriend for dying_ when it wasn’t her fault and _she never came out with them afterward._

Nea’s still holding that stupid fucking stick and she’s got Adam’s bracelet clenched between her fingers on the other hand, and Jake doesn’t have to open his eyes to see it anyway. 

Adam and Kate deserved far better. The Doctor deserved everything he got, but they deserved better. 

**-x-**

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


> _I’m not leaving without him._

> _We have to go._

> _I can’t leave him._

_hdjausubwbcjsyuajxbshyshsbdhddhsujx_

_ptisiiakmvnrklsowjsbdbsbaj_

_ncbzbzvzvanksowidjncnnxjaiduus_

> _Richie...?_

  
  
  
  
  
  


**-x-**

  
  


For three days, there are no trials. 

They’re all fucking starving and exhausted, but the idea of separating from each other for a moment is unfathomable. 

  
**-x-**  
  


Kate and Adam never show up. Zarina ties Adam’s bracelet around her wrist tight enough that it’s probably bruised. Steve has the charm off Kate’s useless cell phone, though the phone itself was lost a long time ago. 

  
  


Nea keeps the Doctor’s stick in her sabotaging toolbox, one of the purple ones with “Alex” written on it. He catches her checking it as if she can’t quite believe it’s still there. 

  
**-x-**  
  


They don’t talk about it. No one comments on Jake’s crying. 

Dwight keeps sitting next to him, trying not to focus on the way Jake had gripped him tightly between his arms as he cried. 

  
  
  


_And then the mist starts to gather again._

  
  
  
  


**-x-**

  
  
  


_It’s a hard knock life, for us. It’s a hard knock life, for us._

She’d only ever seen the movie once, gathered together as a family in the living room watching the tape. Holly had cried through the previews and her mom ended up putting her to bed early. Her dad left about halfway through, taking his glass with him to her parent’s bedroom and he didn’t come back down. Mike had complained it was stupid but she caught him humming songs under his breath for the entire week after. 

The lyrics stick in her head in repeat. _It’s a hard knock life, for us. It’s a hard knock life, for us._

  
  


She wants to go home. She wants to hug Mike, snuggle Holly. She wants to kiss Jonathan and promise him forever. She wants to do a million different things. 

But she can’t. She’s already been here a year, _at least._ The others... Meg said she was taken in 2014. _2014_.

She couldn’t expect Jonathan to wait for her. Holly probably already had a family. Mike and Eleven probably had a bunch of kids. 

On Nancy’s birthday, she kisses Meg and doesn’t promise her forever because she doesn’t know how long they have. She watches Steve fall in love with a tough little badass with the voice of an angel. She settles, as much as she can muster, into a life spent repeating her own death. 

And then, Jake starts _crying_ and it’s the worst sound in the world. 

**-x-**

Three days pass, and it feels like forever. 

And then she watches the mist rumble in and watches Steve be taken away for a trial and she wonders and desperately hopes that this isn’t the last time she sees him. She hasn’t been in love with Steve Harrington in years but she still loves him fiercely all the same. 

She holds Meg’s hand tightly in hers and doesn’t let go. 

**-x-**

**Author's Note:**

> Please feel free to comment~! I welcome the conversation.
> 
> Hit me up anywhere to harangue me into writing, talk fic, fandom, or whatever catches your fancy.  
> [Tumblr: writerdragonfly](https://writerdragonfly.tumblr.com)  
> Discord: writerdragonfly#5403  
> [Twitter: writerdragonfly ](https://twitter.com/writerdragonfly)  
> PSN & Steam: writerdragonfly


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